First, they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
The arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil in New York last week and his almost immediate transfer 2,350 km. away to an illegal immigrant detention center in Pine Prairie, Louisiana, is an act that should threaten every American who believes in a person’s First Amendment right to assemble and express one’s views through protest as guaranteed by the US Constitution.
Living in the US with a legally issued green card (not a student visa, as was incorrectly reported, although he initially arrived there through the student visa program), he graduated from Columbia University in December, is married to an American citizen, and the couple is expecting their first child in a month.
Yes, he was born in Syria to Palestinian parents, but he entered the US legally and seems to have followed all the laws pertaining to eventually living permanently in America.
Then they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist.
As a Jew and as an Israeli, I am mortified at the pro-Hamas position he espouses, angry at him for leading the anti-Israel demonstrations at Columbia University in the aftermath of October 7, and disappointed that the university took no action to silence him when he broke the rules under which students there are expected to operate.
Nevertheless, presumably, he committed no crime; he has no criminal record and, except for his distasteful views about Israel and those of us living here, is a model citizen.
Undermining the law
The question that then begs to be answered is why does the US administration, in its laudable desire to take on the very real problem of campus antisemitism, intimidation, and harassment, have to undermine the rule of law — while purporting to maintain it? Doesn’t the US Constitution also guarantee him due process under the law?
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s invoking of the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act to detain Khalil does not give the government unlimited powers to revoke the rights of permanent residents at will. Rather, under that law, the authorities must reasonably determine that the person’s presence in the US poses serious adverse consequences to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.
One could argue that chanting “Death to America,” which was heard at Columbia during the protests, is cause for some punishment, but it would hardly qualify as being a danger to national security, or a midnight knock on the door and a one-way ticket to a holding center where neither your lawyer nor your family can reach you. Thankfully, the judge later ordered that Khalil be allowed privileged phone calls with his legal team.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Reports from the US say that the Jewish community there is divided on the issue of Khalil’s arrest and detention. In my opinion, there is no reason to be divided. We Jews should have learned from thousands of years of experience that we are at risk when anyone’s civil rights are being trampled. We know that once such a pattern is established, eventually, we could and usually will also be subject to such treatment. How many more times will we allow ourselves to watch silently and acquiesce to the injustices while saying nothing?
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Pastor Martin Niemoller, who penned the words here in italics, learned his own lessons too late. Living in Germany prior to World War II, he was an antisemite in his early years until he recognized where the Nazification of Germany would lead. For his opposition to the government’s actions, he was imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1938 to 1945, narrowly missing being executed as well. His message here is as important today as it was then.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.
For those who take the position that people like Khalil should be deported for their views and that breaking the law to do so is in America’s best interests, the words of Pastor Niemoller, should be mandatory reading. Because, by the time such people realize that the government has gone too far, it will be too late to stop them.
As for Khalil, the university could decide that he violated the rules and regulations governing student behavior and punish him according to the policies of Columbia or even deny him his degree if what he did is punishable by such action. If he broke the laws of the City or State of New York, he should be accused and tried under the due process provisions of the US Constitution.
If, after all of that, the US government finds that he is in violation of the terms under which he was issued a green card, he should be punished as provided by the law. However, American Jews should be at the forefront of the effort to ensure that he is given the full protection of the law so that their future rights are protected under that law as well. Nothing less should be acceptable. Nothing.
The writer is founder, and chair of Atid EDI Ltd., an international business development consultancy. He is also the founder and chair of the American State Offices Association, former national president of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel, and a past chairperson of the board of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies.